RSS – What?

Do you ever wish that you could be told that a web page has been updated rather than going and looking and finding all of the same old stuff that was there last time you looked.

Well that’s what RSS is about. You don’t need to know what it means, like you don’t need to know what DVD means.

RSS allows you to subscribe (or syndicate) to a web page and to be told about updates. This blog, like most blogs, supports it.

So how do you get to use it?

Well there are a number of different ways. If you want help deciding which is best for you please leave a comment with some contact details and I’ll get back to you.

One way is to install a program on your computer. There are loads of these, but I’ll focus on a couple of free ones for now.

Sue is using RSS Popper which plugs into Microsoft Outlook. All of the updates appear as if they are emails. You can sort them, search them, just in the same way as when you use email. You can also click on links start your browser and see all of the content as if it were on a web site.

The other favourite around is RSS Bandit. This is a dedicated program and doesn’t require anything like Outlook. I’ve not personally used RSS Bandit, but friends have and quite like it.

The other alternative is to use a web site which brings together all of the subscriptions. One of these in NewsGator Online, another is Bloglines. I don’t directly use either of these, so I’m not in a position to recommend, but I’m sure I could help if you have an issue.

The really great thing about RSS is that it is getting everywhere. You can now subscribe to news directly from the BBC, you don’t need to go and look at the BBC web site to get all of the news, you can have it delivered.

Why spend time going from site to site trying to wok out if something is new, or not. Get told that new stuff is available and what it is.